The specialists called upon after the failure of a structural component to establish the true cause of the failure find themselves often in the fortunate position that they are able to tell from the fracture what went wrong. In such cases they can readily make suggestions either to improve a bad construction or to replace an unsuitable material. The consequences regarding fulure non-destructive inspection of similar components are often less readily appreciated.

The present paper deals with a number of aircraft component service failures. First, the paper discusses how inspection procedures can be improved as a consequence of service failure analysis. Secondly the paper considers the possibility that changes in existing inspection procedures may lead to unexpected defect discoveries. The third topic shows that the service failure analyst can employ standard non-destructive techniques in unusual ways with increased effectiveness. Finally it is shown that the application of inspection techniques using fluids can influence the subsequent analysis of a failure.